


Let Sleeping Demons Lie

by chamyl, entanglednow



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Altered States, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Blow Jobs, Bottom Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Dreamsharing, Dubious Consent, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Time, Grinding, Hand Jobs, Happy Ending, Kissing, Loss of Virginity, Love, M/M, Making Love, Making Out, Mention of fisting, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, Pining, Romance, Snake traits, Spells & Enchantments, Tenderness, Top Aziraphale (Good Omens), Virgin Aziraphale (Good Omens), Wet Dream, hands touching faces A WHOLE LOT, mild true form
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:41:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26287387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chamyl/pseuds/chamyl, https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: The demon makes a long, pained noise, and Aziraphale makes his decision. He sinks hurriedly to his knees beside the sofa, oddly reluctant to move his hand from the well-loved, rarely touched warmth of Crowley's skin. But, if he’s going to do this, he needs his full concentration for it, he doesn't want to risk becoming distracted.🌙After an evening spent drinking together, Aziraphale is disturbed to realise that Crowley cannot be woken up from his nap.He'll need to make a decision about how far he's willing to go to retrieve his best friend.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 1028
Kudos: 1054
Collections: Best Aziraphale and Crowley, Good Omens (Complete works), Top Aziraphale Recs





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story comes with a serious warning for dubcon, as both characters are put in a situation where they aren’t free to give their consent. If you want to check for a specific trigger before you read this story, feel free to contact either [Cham](https://chamyl.tumblr.com/) or [Tangles](https://entanglednow.tumblr.com/)
> 
> On a lighter note, when we collabed on [Victori Spolia](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25054318) a couple months ago it was actually a bit of a test-drive to see how well we worked together before we attempted to tackle a more complex project. Well, that went really well so here we are, 6 chapters and 19k words later. I know. We have no clue how that happened, really.
> 
> Updates **weekly** on **friday**.

It’s on nights like this, when Crowley’s smile has come easily over dinner and his gaze has lingered on Aziraphale a little too long, that it becomes impossible to ignore how much the angel wishes the two of them could be free.

Free to eat a meal together as friends, without worrying about their respective head offices, simply sitting in a restaurant together with no plans, no end of the world looming over their heads, no Arrangement. 

Free to be just the two of them, in each other’s company, sharing food, sharing conversation, _being seen_. Without having to look over their shoulder all the time.

He breathes a sigh of relief when Crowley accepts his offer of wine, cheesecake, and company back at the bookshop, where it feels marginally safer to spend time together. It’s turned dark and cold outside, and his beloved shop seems so much a space carved out for the two of them.

Aziraphale retrieves a dusty bottle from the storage room, one that he’d quite forgotten he had. He wipes his hand over it and uncorks the thing. Crowley sneers briefly at the abbey on the label but then, after being given a glass, labels it ‘passable’ and downs the whole thing.

It’s a superb wine, with a sweetness to it that reminds Aziraphale of some plum variants he’d tried in the past. The entire bottle lasts exactly twenty-six minutes, before their empty wine glasses force Aziraphale to return to the storeroom. 

He’s now trying to decide what should follow it. Or, more importantly, which would pair best with the cheesecake he has in the fridge. The best choice he takes with him to the kitchen.

“Crowley, I don’t suppose you’d like to help me cut dessert?” He’s expecting a grumbling agreement, a noise that wants to sound reluctant and long-suffering but always falls short of it. He’s rather surprised to receive nothing but silence. He slips back into the room, eyes drawn immediately to the sofa.

The demon’s phone has been set on one of the low tables, screen dark. Crowley’s sunglasses are perched on top of it. His empty wine glass, still holding a dark ring of liquid, stands to its left. The demon himself is sprawled back in the cushions, one leg draped over the arm of the sofa, the other bunched behind him. His own arm is flung over his chest and his eyes are closed, delicate lashes strangely lovely against his pale cheeks.

“Ah, of course, my mistake,” Aziraphale murmurs to himself, though he can’t help the indulgent smile at the display. Manners would dictate that he save dessert until his companion has finished his nap, but he’s quite aware that Crowley would say ‘bollocks to manners’, and insist he eat his cheesecake anyway. So he cuts himself a thick slice, retrieves a fork, and sits down in his armchair to enjoy it.

He’s two forkfuls in when a slithering, shifting sound makes him look up.

Crowley has rolled himself to face the table, one leg now folded up beneath him, the other still draped impossibly over the sofa’s arm. The demon’s own free arm is dangling off the edge at the elbow. He looks terribly uncomfortable, but remains somehow a picture of contentment.

Aziraphale shakes his head. As always, he remains mystified at how Crowley finds it so easy to sleep, to set aside his entire consciousness, to render himself almost entirely unaware and defenceless. The demon has explained numerous times how pleasant he finds it, enough to sleep for weeks, sometimes years at a time. The first time Crowley had encouraged Aziraphale to try it he’d refused - the suggestion had felt far too much like a temptation. But eventually he’d agreed to try, only to wake three days later, tired, confused, and extremely disconcerted. Those three days were a stretch of time that he was entirely unaware of, to all intents and purposes he hadn’t existed, and the thought had disturbed him immensely.

But Crowley loves to sleep, and he excels at it, he’s made it an art form. He sleeps frequently, often inelegantly, and deeply enough that someone could probably move him from one place to another without him opening an eye. Aziraphale finds himself touched by the thought that Crowley trusts him enough to let him see him like this, trusts him enough to be around him in this vulnerable state.

Crowley may be unaware of his surroundings, but Aziraphale never is, Aziraphale is on guard for him when his friend chooses not to be. After all, guarding was his first job, and he never quite stopped.

For a while, he lets sleeping demons lie. He finishes his cheesecake, sobers himself up, cracks open a book, and sits in the armchair across from the sofa. Every now and then he glances up at Crowley with a smile, and takes this chance to simply look at him like he never could if the demon was awake and watching. He’s long since accepted that there have to be hard limits to their friendship, for both their sakes, but - there can be no harm in stealing these crumbs of intimacy whenever he gets the chance.

He tries to focus on his reading, but the demon continues making noises in his sleep, and Aziraphale closes the book to watch him intently instead. In his time on Earth, he’s seen his fair share of humans dreaming and he knows that, sometimes, they start mumbling, talking, or even moving around while asleep. It’s rather fascinating, actually, to a being who chooses to never indulge.

He doesn’t start to think something’s wrong until Crowley moves his arm around in a way that almost propels him off the sofa entirely. His eyebrows are drawn together, and his close-mouthed noises are becoming alarming.

He sounds scared. Lost in a bad dream, maybe? Either way, Aziraphale can’t have that. Not on his watch.

“Dear—” he hurries to his side, lays a gentle hand on one bony shoulder. “Crowley, wake up. It’s just a silly nightmare.”

He seems to calm down, but doesn’t stir. Aziraphale shakes him a little harder.

“Crowley? Crowley, come on now...” This is unusual. Whenever the demon has fallen asleep in front of him it’s always been easy enough to rouse him when necessary. 

Did Crowley have too much to drink? It seems unlikely, they’d had a few bottles at the restaurant and then one here tonight, much less than their usual amount. He supposes there’s always the possibility that he’s been off on some difficult assignment for Hell that he hasn’t told Aziraphale about. Crowley’s often reluctant to share the more… tawdry and unpleasant aspects of them, and the constant use of miracles and occult influence is more than capable of wearying a corporation. It would explain a little of his pinched, unsettled air of late as well. They’ve both got into the habit of protecting each other, often to their own detriment.

But no matter how tired the demon is, it seems out of character for him to be so reluctant to wake for Aziraphale, and the angel can’t deny that he’s beginning to worry. He settles his hand fully around Crowley’s arm, feeling the slender give of muscle under his fingers in a way he’s never quite had the courage to before, and he feels rather guilty about now. He tugs hard enough to jostle the demon in the cushions.

“Crowley, wake up for me, please.”

There’s no reaction, one of Crowley’s long legs has slipped sideways out of the cushions, the boot dragging a scuff mark across the arm of the sofa. The demon is always so careful to erase them once he wakes, before Aziraphale can see them, and the sight of that dark line on the leather leaves something cold squirming in his gut. 

He opens his mouth to call to him again - only for Crowley’s head to roll in his direction, a long breath sighing out of him. Aziraphale is instantly filled with relief at what he assumes is a reaction to his presence, a stirring from sleep. But there’s no further response, and he realises that Crowley’s eyes are still closed, though Aziraphale can now see a fluttering hint of movement beneath the delicate eyelids.

He’s dreaming then. But not waking up, which is very concerning.

“Please, my dear…” He realises in that moment that he’s not used to asking for anything twice. Crowley might grumble, and he might roll his eyes, but if it’s truly important to Aziraphale - if it’s something the angel _needs_ , he’ll provide it. And, right now, Aziraphale needs to be reassured that Crowley is okay.

But there’s no response from the demon, nothing but a vague stretching of his body towards the angel, much like new leaves to the sun.

Aziraphale decides this can’t possibly be a natural sleep, and it’s time to check whether some extraneous factor is at play here. He closes his eyes, focuses, finds it immediately. There it is, clear as day - an interference in Crowley’s demonic energy. A metaphysical knot in the infinite threads of his power. Something Aziraphale can’t quite identify, can’t bring into focus, but definitely an unwelcome intruder.

The angel feels an unexpected flare of blind anger at this discovery - because _how dare it_ , whatever it is, how dare it interfere with his demon’s peaceful sleep? How dare it keep Crowley in its grasp, refusing to let him come back?

He starts reaching out, stops, takes a deep breath to calm himself down. Then he touches Crowley’s hair, slides his fingers along his scratchy cheek, and smiles. What a disarming feeling. They have never touched like this, never had reason to - but right now he needs his best friend to know he’s here for him, that he’s watching over him. That he’ll take care of things.

Crowley makes another noise, longer, lower in his throat, pushes against the palm of his hand. Seeking comfort? Aziraphale’s heart constricts in his chest. Crowley seems so small, so fragile all of a sudden. And Aziraphale has no way to protect him from the mysterious force that may be hurting him right now, perhaps throwing him from one nightmare to the next.

If only Aziraphale could see what he’s dreaming about...

Actually - he can, can’t he? Dream manipulation is one of his. He’s been gifting humans with pleasant dreams since the dawn of time. He’s never tried to interfere with a _demon_ ’s dreams though, and who knows what the side effects might be? 

The demon makes a long, pained noise, and Aziraphale makes his decision. He sinks hurriedly to his knees beside the sofa, oddly reluctant to move his hand from the well-loved, rarely touched warmth of Crowley’s skin. But, if he’s going to do this, he needs his full concentration for it, he doesn’t want to risk becoming distracted.

He makes absolutely sure the shop is locked and warded as tightly as he can manage, so that they won’t be interrupted. Then he finds Crowley’s hand where it dangles off the edge of the sofa, wraps his fingers around the demon’s.

“I’m terribly sorry, Crowley, I’m afraid I’m going to have to take something in the way of a liberty here. Though I can’t help but think you’d simply dismiss my apology in advance and insist I got on with it.”

To be brutally honest, he’s not sure if this will even work, and even if it does, he imagines that Crowley will have some of his own defences in place. Knowing him, it will be something rather cunning and clever, a fiendish puzzle that Aziraphale will have to very carefully pick his way through. But needs must when the devil drives, as they say.

He stops focusing on the world around him, focuses instead on the world as it is inside Crowley, beneath his brimstone and charred wood smell, beneath the corporation, where he connects to his true self, and whatever that vast, complex consciousness is currently doing.

The first thing Aziraphale encounters is the presence of fire, of tightly spiralling coils in the dark, something heavy and old rearing upwards, pressing down on him. He braces himself to fight his way through - only the moment those defences touch him they stop moving, stop growing, they seem to… accept his presence. The sensation of strangling, burning threat thins out and shifts aside, allows him to pass.

_‘Oh, Crowley…’_ he thinks to himself as he passes through the demon’s defences without any fuss whatsoever. He’s almost welcomed in, and he chooses to file that thought away for later, when he isn’t dealing with the issue at hand.

He lands on firm ground inside Crowley’s dream, and it takes a few moments for the blurry images before his eyes to stop swimming. When they do, he finds himself on a street. Is this… ancient Rome, or Greece? Everything is vaguely familiar, and yet also somewhat off, though he can’t quite put his finger on why. He’s sure it’s some place he’s been before, but he can’t put a name to it.

He also notices immediately that his clothes are much more tightly fitting than they should be. And they seem to be rather more transparent too, for some reason. He purses his lips as he stares down at the flimsy white fabric covering his arms to the elbow, noticing how his tunic is cut very low on the neck, exposing his collarbones and part of his chest. A large, decorative pin at one shoulder holds the whole thing together. He’s quite sure this differs greatly from what he remembers about the clothing of the time.

It’s a bright, late morning or early afternoon in Crowley’s dream. It’s also the dead of the summer and the air is heavy with heat and the invasive smell of ripe fruit. The perfect climate for a snake - Aziraphale can’t help but think.

Rome - or Athens, or Sparta - is much cleaner and brighter than he remembers. He walks through the cobbled streets and everything is a little fuzzy at the edges, the loud singing of cicadas coming to him muffled, the rocks under his sandals having an awkward, almost soft consistency.

A woman crosses his path, offers him a glass of wine which he takes instinctively, and she walks away smiling. Aziraphale stares at the glass in his hand. Better not. This place is constructed from Crowley’s memories, but it’s also affected by his imagination and fueled by his subconscious wants and desires. Aziraphale is not entirely sure if anything can be trusted.

His first priority is to locate Crowley and make sure he’s safe. It shouldn’t be too difficult, Aziraphale can’t have been set down too far away from him. He stretches a little of his awareness out - only to pull it back almost immediately, cursing himself for the complete fool he is. Everything feels like Crowley here, Crowley is _everywhere_ , this is his construct after all. It was, at least in part, built from the demon’s own memories.

Someone jostles him as they pass him on the street, spilling the wine he’s still holding. He apologises, instinctively, and tries to discreetly miracle away the resulting stain on his clothing. But the world - the world resists the push of his celestial power and stubbornly refuses to change. Aziraphale realises, unhappily, that he’s forcing his own will to fight Crowley’s. He could probably insist on it, he could probably make the world change for him if he put any sort of effort into it. But he’s not sure what that would do to the dream around him, and until he discovers exactly what’s going on here, and why Crowley cannot wake up, the best thing to do is to follow whatever chain of events is already in motion.

He still startles when an older woman appears at his elbow, makes a gesture of respect, and then signals for him to follow her.

With little other choice, Aziraphale does so.

He’s led past buildings that belong to a few different time periods, some of them Roman, some Greek, and a few from much further South. Then he’s taken through a garden into a large house or villa, or possibly a domus. A two-level, high status design, the walls decorated with leaves and snakes and falling stars.

Where Aziraphale is handed yet another glass of wine and instructed to wait.

He stares at the dark liquid in his cup, realising his hand is shaking only when he notices the ripples on the surface, the little waves he’s making by accident. In this setting, he can’t help but spare a thought for Homer and his ‘wine-dark sea’. Which he thinks is quite a poor translation, he personally knew the men who wrote down the oral tradition that became known as the Odyssey and really—

“Angel!” Crowley rushes down the steps, breathtakingly beautiful like never before, distracting him at once from his train of thought. The demon has always been handsome, but in this dream Crowley is _resplendent_ , his very short black tunic falling perfectly over his body, his lace-up sandals crawling up his slender ankles and calves, his soft copper curls cascading gracefully onto his shoulders. He’s even carrying a small, live white snake around his neck. “You finally arrived.”

Aziraphale is still processing this vision when the demon reaches him, cups the back of his neck, and kisses him. 

The angel drops his cup, wine spilling all over the ground and their feet.

Crowley doesn’t seem to care, smirking into the kiss as he wraps his fingers around the angel’s waist, effortlessly sliding his tongue into Aziraphale’s mouth.

It takes the angel a few seconds too long to disentangle himself and take a step back. He was—taken by surprise, that’s all. No other reason for his hesitation.

“C-Crowley! What in God’s name are you doing?”

The demon laughs - actually laughs! - and takes his hand. “Oh, is that how you want to play today? Fine, we can do that. But at least come inside.”

“But I—” Crowley’s hand is so very warm in his, and something about the easy confidence in the way the demon touches him is terribly disarming. 

Aziraphale follows him inside.


	2. Chapter 2

The interior of the villa feels like Crowley too, confirming that it belongs to him, though the open spaces of it are softer than Aziraphale is expecting. The subtle drop in temperature and low light are welcoming and comfortable, rather than gloomy and uninviting. The floor is decorated with a simple snake pattern, but there's artistry to it, and perhaps even a little humour. He's tugged into a large room, the soft sound of their sandals on the tile the only noise in the whole house. There are flowers bursting from vases along the walls, expensive couches in the centre surrounding a table filled with fruit, and the wall hangings shift gently in a breeze that smells like the sea, though Aziraphale would wager they were nowhere near the coast.

“Did you have some wine?” Crowley asks as the hand in Aziraphale's slides upwards until the demon can link them at the elbow.

Aziraphale can't help but remember that he’s wearing half of one cup down his tunic and the other is a dark stain across the floor of the anteroom.

“Yes, yes, I was given wine—”

“It grows here, you know? It’s very good.” Crowley gently unwinds the little white serpent from his neck, lets it slither from his hand onto the table and slide away. Then he tugs Aziraphale to a couch and urges him to sit, reaches for a jug and two cups that the angel is certain didn’t exist a moment ago.

“Crowley, I have something to tell you—”

“Wine first,” Crowley decides, still laughing as if he hasn’t a care in the world, and perhaps this version of him doesn’t. If this is based on a memory, then Aziraphale wasn’t here for it, and he has no way to know the circumstance. If this is something different, if it’s a fantasy, something that Crowley wanted, that he’d hoped for - that’s worse somehow, like prying into something secret and intimate. The demon needs to know immediately this is nothing but a dream Aziraphale is intruding on.

“Crowley, this isn’t real. None of this is real.”

“I assure you that it is,” Crowley says as he pours. “I didn’t even have to wile for it. I was gifted it by the owner, who was taken by some lung disease without any heirs. Not even a hint of demonic mischief behind it.” Crowley smiles and slides a touch closer, as if he expects Aziraphale to tell him how clever he is, praise him, perhaps even lean in and kiss him—

But this is a dream. 

Aziraphale raises a hand to cover the top of the cup that Crowley is still trying to give him.

“Crowley, will you please _listen_ to me.” He can hear the thread of frustration in his own voice, but also a quietly rising unease.

Crowley looks surprised for a moment, before he sets the jug and the cup down, lifts a hand and folds the warm length of it against the side of Aziraphale’s face. The easy intimacy of it is more than a touch unsettling.

“Of course, angel, if it’s important to you. Tell me.”

Aziraphale steadies himself for a moment. Then, “This is a dream. None of this is real.”

Crowley’s grin wanes into a small smile, pained in a way Aziraphale has rarely seen before. “I know. But it’s hardly the first time, is it?”

Aziraphale can’t help the confused sound of surprise. “This has happened before?”

Crowley shrugs, letting go and leaning back against the couch. “Since time immemorial.” He makes a vague gesture with his hand, as if wrapping an invisible thread around one of his long fingers. “And it’s never quite the same, every time is different. Sometimes you’re more enthusiastic, sometimes more reluctant at first, like today. Ah, but it always ends the same way.”

Aziraphale’s mouth opens and closes uselessly several times, but he doesn’t manage to utter a single word.

“What’s the matter, angel?” The demon leans forward, elbows on his knees, looking sideways at him. He’s still smiling, though it doesn’t reach his eyes, and there’s a disarming sadness to it. Aziraphale wrings his hands helplessly. “You said it yourself, didn’t you? This isn’t real. It’s like—a soap bubble, if you will. It’ll disappear as soon as I wake up, as will you. But the real _you_ \- the one out there - will never know a thing.” He lifts a cup off the table and raises it between the two of them. “I get to feel guilty all by myself. Cheers.”

Aziraphale takes a moment to let that sink in. It’s a lot to accept at once, but he can’t waste time in Crowley’s dream investigating how and why the demon has been having dreams, apparently of the romantic persuasion, that concern him. For, it seems, a very long time. He’s already pried into Crowley’s private desires more than he ever meant to. He should probably be more annoyed by what he’s just learned, but...

He needs to stay focused. He needs to get Crowley to wake up. He’ll have all the time to think about what he’s discovered, later. What can he do now to free Crowley from this dream?

“It… it always ends the same way, you said?” He asks, carefully.

Crowley nods, taking another sip of his wine.

“And what exactly does that entail?” Aziraphale clutches the edge of his tunic. He’s not an idiot, and he suspects he knows already where this is going.

Crowley grins again. He sets his cup down and slides to the floor, liquid and graceful as always. “Why don’t I show you?” He kisses the inside of the angel’s knee, rests his cheek against it. Aziraphale’s stomach drops and he holds his breath. “Just drink your wine and relax, angel.”

“Oh, enough with the wine, what’s all this insistence on the—” Aziraphale gasps. “The _wine_.”

Crowley laughs when Aziraphale reaches for the cup he’d only recently been trying to press back towards him, the dark liquid inside sloshing to the rim.

“Changed your mind, did you?” Crowley smiles up at him, his fingers still gliding gently on the curves of his knees.

“No, _the wine_.” Aziraphale curses himself quietly for being such an idiot. “The wine we had at the bookshop after dinner. It was an older bottle that I was gifted after repairing a few books for a museum just outside Oxford. The fact that it had an abbey on the label - well, it never occurred to me, but it should have. Good Lord, what if I poisoned you? No wonder you wouldn’t wake up. Oh, this is all my fault.”

“Aziraphale.” Crowley’s flirtatious expression has slipped into something more worried. The grip of his hands firmer, as if he’s trying to ground him.

Aziraphale tries desperately to remember how much wine Crowley had drunk. It had to have been more than half the bottle.

“You fell asleep, and I thought nothing of it, only then you started having a nightmare and I couldn’t wake you up, and—”

Crowley reaches out and takes the cup from him, twists to set it back on the table. Then he sways in close, body nudging between Aziraphale’s knees so he can press a hand to his chest, his warm fingertips dragging through the hair there.

“I’m fine, angel, I’m perfectly fine.” The smile is back, soft and fond, as if it has put this whole business together. “Is that what you need this time, do you need to be forgiven, do you need me to forgive you?” Crowley’s other hand lifts, slides up his neck and into his hair. Which rattles all of Aziraphale’s senses, leaves him shaking his head slowly.

“Crowley, no, that’s not—”

“I can do that, you know I can. I will always forgive you, love.”

Aziraphale can’t speak - all the breath suddenly squeezed out of him at the word. Crowley takes that as permission to continue, his long fingers slipping under the skirt of the angel’s tunic, pushing the outside up in gentle bunches of fabric. Aziraphale inhales sharply at the casual intimacy of the gesture.

It’s not as if he hadn’t known. How could he not? Crowley had made his feelings known in any way he could without saying it out loud. He’d found him countless times, in dozens of different countries all over the world, century after century. Wearing this exact same expression. He’d kept him company. He’d argued and made gentle fun of him and even fought with him, but he’d always come back, always made himself available, always been there when Aziraphale needed him. Crowley had rescued him, time after time. He’d saved the things he treasured the most and gifted him with the odd rare book, precious snuffbox, or box of chocolates. He’d accepted all the careful space Aziraphale had put between them, slowed down when asked to. 

Most of all, he’d been terribly kind.

And now - now Aziraphale has the insight into just how much that must have cost him. 

The guilt is sharp and bitter. He’d let Crowley carry on like this - shouldering the weight of all this yearning and quiet affection without protesting once. And what has he done for him? Poisoned him with a wine that should never have touched a demon’s lips.

He needs to - he needs to make this right. He’ll be the one to rescue Crowley this time. He needs to save him from the mess he’s thrown him into, and deal with everything else later. 

Even though he can barely think with the hot press of Crowley’s fingers on his thighs.

“What would it take?” He asks again, voice shaking. “For the dream to reach its end, for you to wake up?”

Crowley takes his hand, kisses the palm. “Hmm, is that what you’d like today? To hear all the things I’m going to do to you?” He smirks, pressing his cheek into Aziraphale’s hand. “I can get on board with that.”

Crowley feels so warm and so real. Aziraphale can’t help but remember what the demon’s cheek had felt like on his sofa, when he’d reached down to touch his sleeping form. He remembers the texture of it, the familiar angles and heat pressed to his palm for the first time. The way he’d felt so guilty about stealing the intimacy while Crowley was sleeping. They don’t as a rule - of course they don’t - and he will not pretend he doesn’t know why. It would have been cruel, it would have been unfair - it would have been too much of a temptation.

Aziraphale realises that he has to try to tell him again, he has to let him know. He can’t leave Crowley thinking he’s some sort of _figment_.

“Crowley, I’m real.” The words are a little breathless, it’s oddly difficult to confess with Crowley looking up at him, his yellow eyes naked and hungry in a way he’s always been so careful not to let Aziraphale see. “I’m not part of this dream, I’m here because you drank the wine. I am the real Aziraphale.”

“You say that sometimes,” Crowley agrees, the corner of his mouth pulling up in a half-smile. “You promise me that you’ll never leave, that you’ll stay with me, that we’re worth the risk.” There’s a laugh and Crowley’s free hand slides under the fabric he’s hiked up indecently, the warm spread of his fingers a sudden shock on Aziraphale’s inner thigh. “But I’m fairly certain that the _real_ you wouldn’t be caught dead without underwear.”

Aziraphale can feel himself reddening.

“You gave me the outfit, you fiend,” he accuses. “I assure you I was very sensibly dressed twenty minutes ago.”

“Would you like to be _very sensibly dressed_ again? I can give you all the layers you want, take them off one by one.” Crowley tugs playfully at the hem of his tunic with the hand that isn’t kneading Aziraphale’s inner thigh.

“That’s not—we can’t.” The angel puts his hands over Crowley’s, and even as he says it he realises they might _have to_. “You can’t agree to this, not in this state, I can’t take advantage—”

“Either I’m the fiend or you’re taking advantage, angel,” Crowley points out, one eyebrow raised.

“Well, in this case it’s both.” He raises his hand again to touch Crowley’s cheek, lets it linger for a moment. “I’m sorry, I can’t do this to you. I’m going to get out now, see if I can find another solution.”

As Crowley looks at him quizzically, Aziraphale focuses and tries to find his way back out. He squeezes his eyes tightly shut, looks for the exit.

And doesn’t find it.

He keeps searching, growing frantic, trying to find the fine thread of angelic power that would lead him out. But it’s nowhere to be found.

He’s trapped.

“Angel.” When he opens his eyes again Crowley’s staring at him. “It’s all right. Whatever it is that’s troubling you. It will be fine, I promise.”

Aziraphale shakes his head, unable to speak.

“Listen to me,” Crowley insists, “Heaven and Hell have no power here. This is a dream, we can do whatever we want. We can _be_ anything we want.”

He says it so easily, without fear, or guilt, as if Aziraphale hasn’t spent long nights over the years quietly, shamefully considering every loophole, every excuse, every impossible twist of fate, but never once accepting that it was really possible. That it was something they could ever have. Crowley means everything to him, and he couldn’t risk him for anything.

It was never because he didn’t want to.

“I can’t leave,” he admits. He shouldn’t have followed so readily, shouldn’t have let himself get distracted, shouldn’t have made himself part of the dream. “Crowley, I can’t leave.”

Crowley frowns and shushes him. “Of course you can’t, angel, you belong here with me.”

That hurts more than Aziraphale expects.

“You say that to me, but you won’t even believe that I’m real.” He doesn’t expect that to come out so angry, or perhaps it’s not anger, perhaps it’s something else, something sharp and hurt and tired and lonely. But Crowley knows, Crowley always knows, damn him. “I’m not real to you.”

Crowley’s fingers tangle in his tunic.

“Then be real for me if you need to be. Be the real Aziraphale, I promise I’ll love you the same.”

“ _Crowley_.”

“Be real for me, angel.” Crowley reaches both hands for his face, curves them, fingers in his hair, thumbs drifting on his cheeks, and there’s something desperate in the way he clings to him. “I’ll show you all the things we’ve done together.”

But they haven’t, they’ve never touched, they’ve never even kissed before today. The fact that Crowley kisses him so easily, that he touches him like a lover, it _hurts_. Still, Aziraphale is left with the horrible realisation that this may be the only way to free them both. They may have to play this dream to its end. 

He’s not a fool, he knows what that means.

When Crowley stretches up and leans in, Aziraphale doesn’t stiffen, he doesn’t push him away. He lets the demon kiss him, the burnt spice and iron taste of his mouth forbidden and new. He lets himself be coaxed into accepting deeper kisses, wet and full, far more intimate than he’s expecting. Crowley makes soothing noises against his mouth, pulls his fingers through Aziraphale’s hair and settles their bodies together with a sigh of pleasure. It’s so very easy to let himself fall into it.

“Aziraphale.”

Long fingers slip down to his shoulder, curl around the clasp of his robe and pull the pin in one practised movement - the fall of cloth bares the left side of his chest and Aziraphale breaks the kiss, hands lifting in panic to grasp and squeeze Crowley’s slim waist. He’d thought he was prepared—

Crowley looks up at him, eyes considering.

“Do you need me to go slow this time, angel? Do you need it to be soft, do you need it to be the first time?”

“It is the first time.” Aziraphale hears himself confess. Though he can’t help but wonder how many times Crowley has heard that before. “I haven’t - I’ve never done anything like this before.”

Crowley nods without a moment’s hesitation. “Slow then. As slow as you’d like. We won’t do anything you don’t want to do.”

But that’s exactly the problem here, isn’t it? He doesn’t want any of this. Well - not like this. He _does_ want this, has been wanting this for so long - maybe, deep down, he’s even been _waiting_ for it to happen.

But he’d never imagined a world in which they could be together. And he’d certainly never imagined it could happen under such circumstances.

Is this for the best? Aziraphale reaches for reasons why this might actually not be so bad after all, as he’s always done whenever he’s been left with no choice. Maybe Crowley’s right, his dream is much safer than any place on Earth for them. Maybe this will be their only chance to be together. Maybe, if they both want it, this is the best they can hope for. 

_If they both want it_. And he can’t make sure of that, not when Crowley doesn’t seem to be truly comprehending what’s happening here.

“I can only hope you will forgive me,” he breathes out, feeling suddenly incredibly tired. Crowley’s waist is warm and solid in his hands. He’s the only real thing in this made-up world beside the angel himself. Real, incredibly beautiful, and completely unaware of the gravity of what’s about to happen.

The demon presses their foreheads together, closes his eyes. “You are forgiven.” He kisses the corner of his mouth, rises from his position on the floor and carefully settles in Aziraphale’s lap, legs on either side of him. “You are forgiven.” He runs warm fingers along the nape of the angel’s neck, down his shoulder, coming to rest on his heart. “I promise you, you are forgiven, and I will keep repeating it as many times as you need me to.”

It’s such a mind-boggling difference, to hear Crowley say aloud what he would simply hint towards outside of the dream. This Crowley, so familiar and trusting, so careful and yet so enthusiastic, breaks his heart. Because Aziraphale has never known him like this.

“Can we just—can we just kiss for a while?” Aziraphale asks, running his hands nervously up and down Crowley’s sides.

“Alas, poor me.” The demon kisses his forehead, his lips, the beating pulse under his jaw. “Having to kiss the most gorgeous creature on the planet, such a hardship.”

Aziraphale feels his cheeks burn hot.

“I don’t know how you can say things like that so easily.” He tips his head when Crowley’s nose trails his jaw, feels the approving press of mouth. He’d never known he was sensitive there, he can’t help but wonder where else Crowley would kiss him, if he asked.

“I can’t say them anywhere else.” Crowley sways back to look at him, then tuts and reaches for the material hanging free, still bunched beneath the swell of his chest. He carefully gathers it up again, pinning it in place at his shoulder, before leaning in and pressing a kiss to the rounded curve. “I can’t say any of the things I want to say. Even if I thought you wanted to hear them, _really_ wanted to hear them - I’m a demon, can’t go around being soft, can’t go around waxing poetic about your eyes, or finding ridiculous similes for your smile. S’not really me, not outside me anyway. Not where anyone can see, even you.”

Aziraphale makes himself reach up, makes himself curl a hand round Crowley’s neck, lets his fingers dip into his silky hair.

“Why don’t you want me to see?” he asks. The demon must know by now that Aziraphale would never judge him. Not for this.

But Crowley frowns at him, and there’s a noise travelling back and forth in his throat, as if he doesn’t want to say.

“What if I gave you all of that and you didn’t want it?” He says eventually, in a quiet voice. “What if I gave you it and they decided to punish you for it? What if I ruined everything we have? I do that sometimes, I ruin things.” He reaches out, cups Aziraphale’s face, thumb drifting gently across his lower lip. “You’re stubborn and brave, and I think if you ever decided—” Crowley’s mouth presses shut, a swallow rolling in his throat. “If you ever decided, I don’t think anything in the universe would change your mind.”

Aziraphale realises abruptly that Crowley is willing to hold this forever, rather than risk him. He’s willing to love him forever without confessing a single thing, and he’s been doing it for centuries.

_The thought of it_.

Aziraphale finds that his hand has closed in Crowley’s hair, and he uses it to pull him in. He finds his mouth, kisses him, in all the ways he’d thought about, all the ways he’d wished he could on nights where no one could see. He takes all his clumsy, desperate adoration, and he pours it into the demon.


	3. Chapter 3

It shouldn’t be this easy.

But it is - they fit together perfectly, the back of Crowley’s head in Aziraphale’s hand, the demon’s limber chest against his softer one. Crowley’s body resting comfortably on the angel’s thighs, barely weighing a thing and yet so hot and solid, pressing against him until Aziraphale forgets he should want to escape this beautiful dream.

What does it say about him if he’s beginning to lose himself in this pocket of Crowley’s imagination where they’re finally safe and happy? And if he were offered the option of living in it forever, would he be tempted to accept? Maybe - _surely_ \- that makes him a terrible angel, and a terrible friend to boot. He’d asked Crowley to slow down, and yet his own hands find their way easily on the demon’s body, exploring and pressing and tugging at the fabric, on his shoulders and down his arms, around his waist and to the small of his back, along his thighs and over his arse. 

Aziraphale finds out quickly that it’s very difficult to hate himself with Crowley’s forked tongue insistently exploring his mouth.

“Beautiful… I never told you,” he breaks the kiss to press the words against Crowley’s throat, to quietly confess his sins to his delicate collarbones. “I can hardly believe I never told you. You’re exquisite, you always have been—”

Crowley laughs, a short huff of breath caressing Aziraphale’s curls.

“I know, love, I know.” He’s pressing closer now, and the angel couldn’t possibly miss the rolling movement of his hips. Crowley is grinding against him, and it feels glorious. “You’re not exactly subtle, I can see how you look at me.”

Aziraphale swats him lightly across a buttock, Crowley laughs again.

It’s wonderful.

“How dare you, you fiend.” His hand brushes against the brooch struggling to hold Crowley’s tunic up, and it surprises him by snapping open at the first touch of his fingers. “You wouldn’t know the first thing about subtle. Do you think I haven’t noticed the way you walk?”

Crowley’s laughing again, spine bending so he can kiss him some more, so he can hum delight at the gentle mockery against Aziraphale’s mouth. 

The demon has always displayed himself, always beguiled and tantalised and tempted. For a long time Aziraphale had assumed that it was an affectation, a habit, or a trademark of sorts of his infernal nature. But sometimes, when they’re together and there’s no one else around, there’s an elegance to Crowley’s movements, there’s a softness to the flex and bend of him that speaks of comfort, of honesty. 

The snake beneath has been exaggerated at times, muffled and repressed at others. But it’s always been there, and Crowley has never hidden it from him. He’s never hidden anything from Aziraphale.

Nothing except this. This last vulnerability. This secret, painful desire to be happy.

Doesn’t he deserve to be happy? Don’t they both?

Aziraphale bunches Crowley’s short tunic in his hands, feels the rasp of hair on his upper thighs.

“Can I remove this?” he asks quietly, before his own nerves can smother the thought.

Crowley sways upright, his knees gripping Aziraphale’s body in a slow, teasing catch.

“Of course you can, angel. You don’t have to ask. I’m yours to strip whenever you’d like.” He stretches his arms over his head and Aziraphale finds that pushing the fabric over Crowley’s hips and up his narrow waist is alarmingly easy. To expose the plump squeeze of his balls and the stiffening curve of his cock. A shocking intimacy of flesh that they’ve never shared. The fabric rises in bunches and folds, revealing tanned skin and the long, beautiful ladder of his ribs, the tight, high peaks of his nipples and a scatter of red chest hair.

Aziraphale pulls the tunic over his head, tousling the curls attractively, before letting it drop. He lays his hands on Crowley’s bare skin and feels his whole body thrum with desire, fear giving way to hunger.

Maybe he’s just trying to assuage his sense of guilt, but he’s suddenly sure that if he reached out in real life, if he just asked - Crowley would say yes, no matter how dangerous it would be.

Looking at him now, it’s hard to remember why Aziraphale hasn’t. Why he hasn’t risked everything just to touch him, to have him happy and naked and laughing on top of him like this.

But no, of course, he couldn’t. He couldn’t risk their safety just to satisfy such a base need.

Though the moment he thinks it he knows that’s not true. This has never just been about physical desires. Hasn’t there always been more between them, something terribly necessary, something he feels more than a little lost without? 

He runs his fingers along Crowley’s collarbone, down his chest, thumb catching on a nipple, and - who is he kidding? This is his best and only friend, the single soul in the universe he ever felt such a connection with. This is a desire to be impossibly closer and show his love (because _that’s_ what it is, isn’t it?) in the most direct, most intimate, possibly most human way.

“Crowley, I—” his voice is hoarse, his gaze unable to keep still, taking in every detail of the smiling demon sitting in his lap. He doesn’t tell Crowley he’s beautiful again, rather he lets his hands do the blasphemous worship. Uncertain fingers caress and touch and explore, on a mission to find the most sensitive spots of his body, to discover how to please him best.

It’s overwhelming to suddenly have what he’s secretly been coveting for so long. Aziraphale’s head spins and he presses his lips to the smooth skin of Crowley’s throat, trying to steady himself. He catches and tugs at his lover’s curls, and the demon complies more than willingly, tilting his head back, arching his spine, offering himself completely.

Aziraphale licks along the column of his neck, already drunk on the taste of Crowley’s skin as the hand that’s not lost in his hair skims over the demon’s thigh, finds his cock, gives it a gentle stroke. Crowley moans softly and tenses in his arms, presses himself against his hand, and Aziraphale doesn’t have it in him to deny him. He swallows down his sense of guilt, calls himself a selfish bastard one more time, and wraps his fingers around the throbbing length of Crowley’s cock, jerking in earnest.

“Angel, angel.” Crowley fists his hands in the material of Aziraphale’s tunic, hips pushing up into every movement. “You’re always so good to me.” His long fingers curl around Aziraphale’s, urging him into a faster pace. “Always perfect. Ah - fuck - every time you touch me, every way you touch me. You can’t know how much I want this - I could never have enough of you.” He leans in, the words panted against Aziraphale’s cheek, before he’s slanting their mouths together again.

It’s not the first time for Crowley, of course it’s not. He’s dreamt about this, he’s played this out - touched the dream version of Aziraphale in a hundred ways, a thousand ways. This is nothing new for him, nothing special for him, it matters no more than any other fantasy he’s had.

It doesn’t matter.

It’s not fair of Aziraphale to be so hurt by that. This isn’t Crowley’s fault, there’s no blame to be placed here. The demon has never been able to touch him in the real world, never been able to show any obvious sign of his affection. He’s never been able to slide in close, to take his hand, to lean in and kiss him when they greet each other, like a lover - the way they’d done thousands of years ago.

Those brief, flaring touches of Crowley’s mouth against the corner of his own, perfunctory, acceptable.

But Aziraphale remembers when they stopped. When they were no longer the fashion.

His hand tightens on Crowley’s cock, pulling a breathy hiss of approval out of him, then a shaky moan into his mouth. Crowley’s thighs spread wider, knees braced on the couch as the muscles of his stomach flex and tighten. He’s so very beautiful.

“Aziraphale, you’re going to make me come.” Crowley’s other hand curls around the back of his neck, draws them closer together. “Is that what you want, do you want me to ruin your clothes so you have to take them off?”

“I want—” Is that what he wants? Is that what he’s doing? Aziraphale doesn’t even know. He wants everything, even if it burns him, even if it’s too much to handle. It’s like a dam has broken and now he wants to try every single thing there is to try - but he also wants this to be over as soon as possible, before either of them can get hurt any further. He wishes this had never happened - he’s thankful it did. He wants Crowley to be gentle and careful with him - he doesn’t think he deserves any kindness at all.

Crowley must spot the panic in his eyes, because he rescues him - as he always does - slowing down and smiling against his lips. “Anything, angel. Let me give it to you. Please, please let me.”

Aziraphale swallows. What he wants shouldn’t matter. He’s here for Crowley, not the other way around. 

But he’s not strong enough, once again. 

“I want you to treat this as the first time, as if I had never been touched,” he confesses, too greedy, always too greedy. _As if_ , because Crowley doesn’t seem to be able to understand he’s real, and not a figment of his imagination. “By anyone.”

Quickly, Crowley shoos the angel’s hand away and wraps his fingers around himself, squeezing once, biting into his bottom lip. “I have to hold off, then.” He licks right into Aziraphale’s mouth, dragging a helpless sound out of him - then he grins. “But I’m still going to ruin your clothes, in a moment.”

The demon stands up and Aziraphale has just enough time to mourn the loss of him before insistent hands wrap behind his knees and pull, urging him to scoot closer to the edge of the couch. Crowley kneels between his thighs, looks hungrily up at him.

“If you had never been touched before—” Crowley drags the fabric of the angel’s tunic up and out of the way, exposing his very obvious erection, “Then you’d absolutely have to try this. You’ve told me yourself I’m - what was it? ‘Sinfully good’ at it.”

Aziraphale barely has time to brace himself before Crowley’s lips have closed around his cock, and his hands immediately fly to the demon’s head, tangling in his hair while he struggles with the conflicting urges to push him away and pull him closer.

His hips decide for him, stuttering up into Crowley’s mouth, and the demon makes an amused noise around him.

“Crowley.” His voice comes out shocked, comes out pleading, and his fingers push helplessly into red curls.

It’s such an immediate, visceral, _human_ sensation. To have part of himself inside Crowley, touching him from the inside, filling him in this obscenely intimate way. Aziraphale can’t look away, can barely drag a breath as Crowley’s tongue flattens on the length of his cock, then slithers around it in a way that should be impossible. That tight squeezing catch moves with Crowley’s mouth as he slides back, leaves the slick, wet length of his prick bare while his tongue plays over the head, where Aziraphale finds himself to be shockingly sensitive. He can’t do anything but moan as Crowley closes around him again, sucks gently in a way that knocks words out of him.

“Crowley, ah, please don’t stop. It’s so much.” One of Aziraphale’s feet flails helplessly until it hits the table, braces against the heavy wood. But that jolting movement does nothing except nudge him down further on the couch, pushing his upper thighs into Crowley’s shoulders. He realises guiltily that he’s pulling Crowley’s hair, and tries to make himself stop. It’s so very difficult when his head is bobbing in a slow, gentle rhythm, the slickness of his cock sliding free and then disappearing into the demon’s beautifully sinful mouth. He’s never felt anything so blissful.

“You don’t know how many times I thought about this,” he confesses.

Crowley hums gently, both hands wrapping around his thighs and squeezing. Aziraphale can’t speak for gasping for a moment, his fingers now scratching gently at Crowley’s scalp.

“I wanted this.” It feels so good to say, after all this time, with pleasure tightening like a fist inside him. He feels so painfully in love and so desired, and he can’t be anything other than honest. “I’ve always wanted this. I’ve always wanted you, never anyone else.”

The forbidden words roll off his tongue and nothing happens. No one comes down to punish him, no one rises from the ground to take Crowley away from him. Crowley himself doesn’t seem surprised to hear them, no doubt has heard them before in his dreams many, many times. Aziraphale is left to wonder whether he’ll remember this one, whether he’ll be able to tell it was different at all. Whether he’ll know this time was real.

“It’s always been you. Oh Crowley, I never told you, I hope you knew—” he gasps when the tip of Crowley’s wicked tongue presses flat against the spot right below the head of his cock, a shocking wave of pleasure riding up his spine and scattering every last coherent thought he has. He hears himself, distantly, muttering Crowley’s name, a breathless mantra interspersed with helpless noises high in his throat, and he’s terribly aware he’s the hardest he’s ever been and he must be leaking copiously in Crowley’s mouth, but at this point he’s completely unable to stop himself.

A hand wraps firmly around the base of his cock, Crowley pulls back with one last, slow lick from root to tip. “I want you to come inside me,” he growls, and Aziraphale can only nod, bending forward for a moment to cup his cheek in his hand and kiss him.

Crowley’s taste has changed, and if Aziraphale thinks too hard about it - if he lets himself dwell on the fact that he’s tasting himself in Crowley’s mouth - this might be over very soon. And he can’t have that. Crowley wants him to come inside him, and Aziraphale thinks that sounds like the most brilliant idea he’s ever heard.

He sits back up, expecting Crowley to resume the lovely thing he was doing - but the demon climbs into his lap instead, teasingly pressing his naked body down against Aziraphale’s wet cock. He suddenly has a small bottle of oil in his hand, which he shows to the angel with a cheeky grin. “Would you like to open me up?” 

He seems to misunderstand the confused look Aziraphale gives him, because he continues, “Oh, or would you rather watch as I prepare myself for you, you naughty thing? I can do it right here, get oil all over your tunic. I did say I was going to ruin your clothes.”

Aziraphale tries desperately to claw back something in the way of sense. He understands, theoretically, what Crowley’s asking him to do. And, God forgive him, he’s not at all opposed to the idea. He knows that stretching is required for penetration. But how exactly someone goes about it, the correct way it’s supposed to be done, he’s never learned that. He has no practical experience.

“I’ve never actually...” He looks at the small bottle of oil, which somehow has become something far more important. “Could you tell me what I need to do? I want to do it right.”

Crowley’s smile slowly smooths into an expression of surprise, and then apology. He sets the stoppered bottle to one side for a moment.

“I’m sorry. You asked me to treat this like the first time and I’m rushing ahead, aren’t I? I’m trying to do it all at once. My fault, my fault.” He leans in, one long arm wrapping around Aziraphale’s shoulders. “You deserve what you asked for. You deserve to have this however you want, angel.”

There’s a kiss, surprisingly slow and sweet considering how hard they are against each other.

“Can I take your clothes off?” Crowley asks softly. “I’d like to see all of you.”

The thought of Crowley’s hands on him has become something almost necessary, something Aziraphale wants terribly. He murmurs assent into the demon’s mouth - and this time, when the clasp is undone and the fabric falls, he doesn’t shy away from the slide and grip of hands on his bare skin. They have already been far more intimate than this. Crowley sways away, briefly, to pull the whole thing over his head, leaving them naked against each other for the first time.

“Look at you, you’re lovely, I always knew you would be.” Crowley’s fingers sweep over his shoulders and down his ribs, a slow touch that pulls a surprised, pleased noise out of Aziraphale, and he can’t help pressing up into Crowley’s hands. They take that as permission to indulge themselves, to grasp the soft parts of him, to slide through his chest hair and thumb gently at his nipples with a sound of delight. Until Crowley bends to press a kiss to his bare shoulder, his bare collar bone, and finally the curve of his neck, before returning to his mouth, the kiss a touch harder and fiercer than before. It’s so much, and Aziraphale finds his hands have slipped to Crowley’s thighs, tightened enough to pull the demon in close. “Do you want to learn how to get me ready for you?”

“Very much,” Aziraphale tells him, which is the honest truth.

Crowley lifts the bottle.

“Alright, give me your hand.”

Aziraphale does, and Crowley dribbles the oil on one of his fingers, then on another. The angel gets a little too enthusiastic and presses against the rim, making Crowley spill the oil all over his hand. “Oopsie,” he says as he smears the thick liquid between his fingers. It won’t be a problem - the bottle is deceptively small, and he imagines that it will keep pouring as long as they need it to.

Crowley laughs as he looks at his hand completely covered in oil. “That’s a bit much, I think we’ll keep that one for another day.” He leans close, captures the angel’s bottom lip between his teeth and gives it a playful tug before letting it go. “Unless you want to put your whole hand in me right now.”

Aziraphale feels his cheeks burning hot, he must be red as a beet. He’s never even considered having his whole hand inside someone, what an absurd notion - but somehow, when Crowley says it, he can suddenly see the appeal. He must be going a little mad, because he realises he’d try everything once, if Crowley was involved.

“N-not right now, no.” Without any further hesitation, he reaches behind Crowley and squeezes his arse. Then, carefully, he finds his opening and begins pressing a fingertip against it. “Like this?” he asks as he eases inside.

Crowley’s reaction is immediate, he pulls himself up on his knees and pushes back against it, until Aziraphale is doing basically nothing but keeping still while the demon moves over him.

“Just like that, perfect, angel.”

He’s gorgeous, Aziraphale couldn’t tear his eyes off of him if he tried. Crowley’s smiling as he bites his lip, cheeks flushed, loose curls wild around his face and over his shoulders. His chest heaves and his stomach contracts with every roll of his hips, a provocative dance that Aziraphale could watch forever.

“Crowley,” he says, helplessly, because it feels like too much, his cock is aching between his legs and he’s incredibly aware that the slightest touch could set him off. He’s sure he won’t last but a moment if they succeed and he finally gets to be inside Crowley. He wonders how the demon’s body would feel around him, how it would feel to spill inside him - to fill him with his come. As obscene a thought as he could have, but it doesn’t matter how ashamed of himself he is.

He’s been desperate for it for so long, waiting for something he never thought he’d get, and now he just cannot stop.


	4. Chapter 4

“Satan, I love your hands. Always have.” Crowley continues moving over him, and Aziraphale realises with a start his whole finger is inside the demon now. Gently, he tries to add another. Crowley stops him immediately, a hand encircling the angel’s wrist. “You have to pull it out and go back in with two.”

Aziraphale nods, does as he’s told. 

“That’s right, angel, that’s perfect.” Aziraphale wants to say he’s doing nothing, it’s all Crowley’s work, but finds most words have deserted him right now.

“Your hands,” he mutters instead, looking at Crowley’s elegant fingers gripping his pale shoulder. “Those are beautiful. Not mine.”

“Nah.” Crowley lets out an extremely lewd, breathy moan as he sinks onto Aziraphale’s fingers. He’s so hot and slippery inside, and the angel can’t quite help wriggling his fingers a little. “They’re just long and awkward. But your hands, oh angel, your hands… I’ve wanted them on me since I can remember. I want them everywhere.”

It feels like a gift, that confession in Crowley’s low, rough voice. When Aziraphale breathes his name in reply, it sounds more honest than the word ever has, gives away so much - but doesn’t the demon know it all already?

“All you had to do was ask, all you ever had to do was ask.” It’s a lie, Aziraphale knows it the moment he says it. It’s what he wanted, it’s what he thought about when no one could see him, a fantasy that could never have come true. But he knows that Crowley needs to hear it, he deserves to know how much Aziraphale has always wanted him too, so, for the moment, it can be the truth. If Crowley can pretend then perhaps he can do the same, for a little while.

Aziraphale’s other hand is slip-sliding on Crowley’s thigh, the hair pressed tight to the skin. He’s leaving streaks of oil on his hip and waist, a print of it on his chest, the shine painted across his nipples while he shudders and grinds back, using Aziraphale’s fingers to pleasure himself, and the thought is painfully erotic - the picture of him using Aziraphale for his pleasure. The suggestion that he may do the same when Aziraphale finally sinks into him.

He’s been hard for so long, a constant drag of desire that throbs and aches, wavering into beautiful discomfort as he watches Crowley’s hips rock. Aziraphale reaches for the centre of him with his stretching fingers - until Crowley arches and gives a hoarse cry, hand dropping to snatch at his cock and squeeze it.

“Fuck.” His long legs pull in, tensing. “Angel, if you still want to be inside me you should do it now.” It’s more a gasping plea than anything else, all smoke and bite, his mouth more full of teeth and tongue than any human’s ever could be. Aziraphale loves him, fiercely, every strange and beautiful piece of him.

“Are you ready?” he asks.

There’s a jerky nod, Crowley’s hips lifting before Aziraphale can pull his hand free. Then the demon is slithering forward, looping an arm around his wide shoulders while he reaches down to hold Aziraphale’s cock with the other.

“Spread me open,” Crowley hisses in Aziraphale’s ear, which is unexpected, but so incredibly obscene and arousing that Aziraphale is already cupping his slim buttocks, holding them open as Crowley sinks onto him. The tight clench of his body presses down, pushing Aziraphale inside.

It’s unlike anything he’s ever felt. It’s glorious and incredible and he has to wonder how he’d ever resisted it, all those years - God Almighty, he didn’t know. He didn’t know it could feel like this.

Crowley’s body burns hot against him, the narrow ring of his anus clenching around him, taking his breath away. It’s an extremely physical sensation for all that they’re in a dream. More than that, Crowley seems to be everywhere - over him and around him, his taste in Aziraphale’s mouth, his smell intoxicating, the sounds he’s making something the angel has barely dared imagine before. Aziraphale is going to drown in him, and he dives willingly deeper inside.

“ _Angel_.” Crowley makes a wounded noise, lets out a shuddering breath against the curve of Aziraphale’s shoulder as he slams his body down. “Angel, I can’t, I’m sorry, I can’t slow down—”

“Don’t,” Aziraphale gasps, holding him open. “Don’t you dare. Take it, it’s all yours. Oh Crowley, I’m yours, I’m yours, I’m sorry I was too much of a coward to tell you.”

Crowley’s blazing eyes fly wide open, and for a moment - Aziraphale sees something like understanding shine in them, a flicker that burns and dies a moment later, and then the demon is kissing him, hot and wet and desperate.

“Please.” He reaches behind himself, grabs one of Aziraphale’s hands, guides it to his cock. “I haven’t got long, make a mess of me.”

Aziraphale can’t do anything but obey. Crowley tenses and arches and rocks over him, head thrown back, the beautiful column of his neck glistening with sweat, his sharp jawline clenching in effort, a quivering sound escaping him with every precise thrust that spears him open on the angel’s cock.

“I want to see you,” Aziraphale pleads, fast and breathless. 

He can feel his own orgasm approaching, inevitable and powerful, but he doesn’t want it to end, not yet. There’s so much he wants to do, so many ways he wants to touch Crowley. He hasn’t done enough yet. He’d never imagined Crowley could be so responsive, that he would shudder and whine so beautifully, that he would dig his teeth into his lip and arch into Aziraphale’s touch. His slippery hand is moving quickly but clumsily on Crowley’s cock, and the other is tight on his slim waist, tugging him down as he pushes up, rhythm gone to pieces. Aziraphale can’t imagine what they would look like to anyone watching. 

“Crowley, show me.”

The demon swears, thighs jerking outwards, and then he’s coming in long, messy pulses, the wet spatters of it hitting his own stomach and chest, drooling over Aziraphale’s fingers and sliding down to the bounce of Crowley’s balls to drip onto Aziraphale’s shaking skin. Long fingers encourage his hand to keep working the demon through it, to keep touching him, while Crowley gives whining gasps of air as Aziraphale continues to pound into his over-sensitised body.

He’s so beautiful and Aziraphale is so close and he’ll never have this chance again.

“Can I - Crowley would you let me -”

“Take it,” Crowley growls out, voice a breathless wreck of adoration. “Anything you want, angel, take it, it’s yours.”

Aziraphale slides his hand from Crowley’s softening cock, encourages him to loop his arms around the angel’s neck. Then he finds Crowley’s small, twitching buttocks and spreads them wide, to Crowley’s whine of shivery approval. He’s pushing up and in, quick and desperate, feeling Crowley’s body open for every hard thrust, his hole stretched and tight and perfect. 

Until the clenching shudders drag Aziraphale all the way over as well, leaving him driving in deep and holding himself there with a shockingly loud moan of strangled ecstasy. He can feel the pulses of his own release inside Crowley’s body, sweet and sharp and overwhelming. The realisation that he’s leaving part of himself inside the demon has him turning his head to kiss the long stretch of Crowley’s neck, pulse thudding under his mouth. The demon squeezes around him, fingertips digging into his back, as he hisses his name, presses his open mouth to Aziraphale’s cheek.

“Angel, hnh, that’s it, that’s good, you did so good.”

The words are shaken and blissful and Aziraphale has to reach up with an oily hand, turn Crowley’s head and kiss him again, a breathless, desperate joining of their mouths. Unthinkable, just an hour ago, to be so close, so filthy and yet so perfect.

Aziraphale smiles, pulls back far enough to be able to take a good look at Crowley as he is now, soft and rumpled and painfully beautiful. He smooths the demon’s hair back, cups his cheeks, sees Crowley smiling back at him - and notices suddenly that the world around them is beginning to blur.

He expands his consciousness just enough to notice the way out is open again. He’d be free to leave now, if he wanted to. If he doesn’t go of his own accord he’ll be expelled anyway as the dream ends and vanishes.

But he doesn’t want to leave, not now, not so soon. He should be happy - his plan worked. By participating in the dream and letting it unfold to its natural end he’s freed himself and Crowley from it, but he’s not happy at all. The idea of leaving right now breaks his heart into pieces, he can’t imagine a world where Crowley isn’t warm and safe and real in his arms, smiling at him like only a lover would, touching him without fear of being rejected.

This isn’t real. He knows that. He’s known from the beginning that they would both have to leave. He’s not allowed to remain in Crowley’s dreams, in this world that never existed, drifting in blissful happiness like a lotus-eater. He has to go and face the consequences of what he’s done.

But, for as long as he can, he buries his face in the curve of Crowley’s neck and holds him close, crying bitter, secret tears, until he’s inexorably pushed away and out.

The next thing he knows he’s back in the bookshop. Fully dressed - of course, on his knees by the sofa, his hand still holding Crowley’s.

The distance between the two of them immediately strikes him as terribly wrong and unfair, until he remembers that this is already much closer than they normally allow themselves to be. Their reality is one of careful distance.

He stares with bated breath as Crowey’s eyelashes begin to flutter. The demon is waking.

There’s no time to prepare himself, no time to decide how best to react to what he’d let happen - what he’d encouraged to happen - between them. He doesn’t know how Crowley will feel about it, or what it will change, what it may have altered irreparably, for better or worse.

He finds his hands quickly untangling from the demon’s at the thought, drawing away to fuss at the bottom of his waistcoat, so very different to the intimate nudity from just moments ago. He doesn’t want to press any attention upon Crowley before he knows that he hasn’t made a terrible mistake. Not before he knows if he’s been forgiven for what feels a lot like a violation of both trust and intimacy.

A snakeskin boot slides against the arm of the sofa, as Crowley’s long legs stretch - until one falls off the cushions entirely. Though it does seem to shake the last of sleep from him. He makes an annoyed noise, eyelids flickering open to reveal eyes that are stretched yellow from corner to corner until they settle, pull back, the whites visible again. 

He seems no happier to find himself awake than Aziraphale. He stares into the high shelves for a moment, frowning, mouth twitching. Aziraphale holds his breath, wondering how they can ever go back, nothing will ever be the same. Not now they’ve touched each other, kissed each other, loved each other. 

Aziraphale also can’t miss the very obvious sign that Crowley’s pleasure had extended to the real world as well, soaking through his jeans to stain the crotch.

Crowley seems to notice at the same time, teeth clicking together as he pulls a leg up and snaps hurriedly. There’s an uncomfortable stiffness to him for a moment, something taut and embarrassed. Until he turns to face Aziraphale, who’s both desperate for words and dreading them at the same time.

There’s a long, slow blink.

“What are you looking at me like that for?” Crowley frowns. “It’s not my fault. You could have woken me up.”

Aziraphale shakes his head. He couldn’t of course, that was the very reason they’d been trapped, he’d explained this already.

“No, I couldn’t actually, the wine was blessed, that’s why we - that was the reason for the dream, for my behaviour. I’m so very sorry—”

Crowley makes a rough noise, abruptly cutting Aziraphale off with something that still feels like embarrassment.

“Yes, well, best not to mention my little sofa indiscretion, alright? Whatever I was dreaming, I don’t remember it.”

Aziraphale forgets how to breathe, very abruptly every organ inside him is just for show. It feels like something inside him is tearing. That mixture of guilt and desire and love and hope is simply carved away and left to fall. There’s a huge empty ball of nothing expanding in its place.

“You don’t remember?” He hears himself say.

Crowley stares at him, mouth scrunched into a hard, disgruntled shape. He shakes his head, pushing himself upright and passing a hand back and forth in his hair.

“Nope, did you see my glasses anywhere around here?”

Crowley doesn’t remember.

He doesn’t remember a thing.

That’s… that’s for best, isn’t it?

Aziraphale turns around quickly, pretends to look for the glasses. He sees nothing except the blurry shape of his hands rummaging among his books and knick-knacks.

He needs to get a hold of himself. He tries to force air into his lungs, blinks back tears. He smooths his waistcoat down again, swallows. Right. Stiff upper lip, he can get through this.

“Found ‘em,” Crowley says somewhere behind him.

“Good.” Aziraphale makes himself say. “I shall—I shall see you sometime next week then, yes?” That’s good, that’s perfect, he sounds almost normal, somehow. “Again, I’m terribly sorry for the mix-up with the wine. I will have to be more careful in the future.”

He glances back at Crowley who’s stretching his arms over his head, cracking his neck left and then right. “Eh, forget it, it’s no big deal.”

The words hit him like a blow to the stomach. He has no right to feel hurt by them, Crowley is only trying to make him feel better about his mistake. But he feels nothing but hurt anyway.

He notices his friend, dark glasses back on, is looking at him with an eyebrow raised. As if he’d caught some of Aziraphale’s pain.

“Off you go then.” His mouth twists into an empty smile, just enough to ward off suspicion. “I have some inventory I really wanted to get to tonight.”

Crowley gives a jerky nod and makes for the door, just like he has a thousand times before, whenever Aziraphale so much as hinted he wanted to be left alone. The angel balls his hands into fists until he can feel the nails digging into his palms, until the insane urge to stop Crowley before he can leave has washed over him and died down.

If Aziraphale loves him (he does, he does, _he does_ ) he will let him go, never mention this again. He will carry this guilt by himself, will mourn what he lost by himself. He can’t give Crowley a world in which they can be together, and he can’t undo what he did in his dream. But he can give him this - a semblance of normalcy, a tolerable mundanity.

“Goodnight, angel.” Crowley is out of the door before Aziraphale can reply, and he’s never felt this alone before.


	5. Chapter 5

Aziraphale, mostly, succeeds. He carries his secret all by himself, buries it so deep he almost never thinks about it.

He slips only in the middle of those endless nights where he feels so lonely it physically hurts, a cold burn deep in his chest, and what he does with it only renews his sense of guilt. But Crowley never finds out about it - and Aziraphale considers that as a success.

Until the day comes when they finally get what they’ve always wanted: freedom.

Crowley takes him out to lunch and they celebrate their smashing victory. The way the demon smiles at him is more intoxicating than any wine could ever hope to be.

It’s all a happy blur, how they go from hors d’oeuvres to desserts to the Bentley to Aziraphale’s sofa, but the angel is too elated to care. It’s perfect and wonderful, and before he knows it Crowley has taken his glasses off, is looking at him with desperate fondness, and then leaning closer, stopping when only an inch is left between their lips.

“Could I—”

Aziraphale freezes, the memories of what he’d done suddenly sharp, the secret he’s kept from Crowley for years dangerously close to coming to light. Along with the guilt for what he’d done to Crowley in the dream. He doesn’t deserve the soft honesty in the demon’s expression, doesn’t deserve this tentative offer to give him everything he’s been dreaming about. 

“I can’t.” The angel leans back, puts as much distance as he can between them without falling off the sofa.

Crowley seems genuinely surprised for a moment before he turns away, sliding his glasses back on, his jaw clenched tight. “Right, of course, shouldn’t have done that. My bad.”

The hurt is so sharply obvious that Aziraphale finds himself reaching out - only for Crowley to manage to somehow no longer be close enough to touch, lounging backwards into the cushions, one leg thrown over the other. His expression is so bland and so flat that it’s painful to look at.

“I thought.” Crowley’s teeth click together, as if to stop himself from saying anything else. His mouth stays as a grimace for a few long seconds, before relaxing. “Forget it happened,” he says hurriedly, desperately. “It’s all a bit - end of the world not happening and everything. We should have a drink. Unless you’ve had enough of - celebrating.”

_Had enough of me_. That’s easy enough to hear under all the nonsense.

The thought that Crowley might get up and leave, that he might drive away from the bookshop angry and hurt, today of all days, after everything they’ve won, is unbearable.

Aziraphale feels like a villain. Crowley had done nothing, absolutely nothing wrong, nothing he should feel guilty for. He’d reached out in a moment of affection, he’d meant to kiss him, Aziraphale was sure of it. He’d taken a chance that his affection was returned - because for him they’d never kissed before - and Aziraphale had flinched away like the very thought of it horrified him, when Aziraphale is the one who should be so soundly rejected, the one who should be revealed unworthy of such an innocent, hopeful gesture. A gesture he’d been so desperately hoping for, and had now thoroughly ruined. Had ruined years ago.

“I don’t think drinking is a good idea. Crowley, please let me -”

“No,” Crowley says sharply, cutting Aziraphale off before he can offer a word of apology, as if he’s afraid of what he might say. “Aziraphale, you don’t have to explain.”

“I think I do.” It’s out before he realises it, and suddenly the thought terrifies him. But he does, doesn’t he, after all this time? Crowley deserves an explanation, deserves an apology for what Aziraphale did, deserves to _know_ at least what Aziraphale did. That he’d betrayed Crowley’s trust, and then kept it hidden from him. “I didn’t do the right thing back then. But I can do the right thing now.”

There’s a strange stillness to Crowley before he looks at him over the top of his glasses. When he speaks, his voice is strained and low. “Aziraphale. Don’t.”

“My dear.” Aziraphale’s hands shake. It’s too late to back down, everything is going to come out, he can’t hold it back any longer. “You wouldn’t be so gracious if you only knew… if you remembered what I’ve done… I’m not worthy of your friendship, of your affection, of your—”

“I remember.”

Aziraphale’s heart skips a beat in his chest.

“What did you say?”

“I remember.” Crowley stands up, begins circling the room. “I remember how I forced myself on you, how I pressured you into something you didn’t want. The sacrifice you made to help me. I remember you pulling us out of that place.”

He stops in front of a book left open on a delicate Genesis illustration painted red, blue, and gold.

Aziraphale’s hands cling to his own knees, his knuckles white, desperately seeking something to hold on to. He feels suddenly nauseous, seasick even though he’s on dry land. “Why did you—when you woke up, you said you didn’t remember what you’d dreamed.”

“How could I say anything else?” Crowley mutters, his lips press tightly together, hands deep in his pockets. “You couldn’t even look at me. You were horrified when I woke up and realised what I’d done.”

“With _myself_.” Aziraphale is on his feet before realising it, crossing the room, because the distance between them is suddenly unbearable. “Crowley, I was disgusted with myself, it was never you.”

The demon looks at him, eyebrows pinched together, glasses low on his nose. “Why?”

“Why?” Aziraphale repeats, unable to believe what he’s hearing - seeing his own incredulity mirrored on the demon’s face. “Crowley, I… I poisoned you. By accident, but I did. I panicked and entered your dreams without permission. And then I…” Aziraphale drops his eyes to the floor, unable to hold his gaze any longer. “You didn’t understand that I wasn’t real. You were in no condition to agree to what happened next. What I _encouraged_ to happen.” 

“I wanted it, Aziraphale, I—I wanted it so badly I created a world where you had no choice. It wasn’t your fault.” Crowley’s gentleness is unbearable, worse than any punishment he was bracing himself for. “You were trapped with me - it was your first time, and I kept pushing.”

“That’s not what happened.” Aziraphale sets his jaw, finds the courage to look back up at Crowley - beautiful, compassionate Crowley, that he will never deserve. “I knew exactly what was going on, and you didn’t, and I will never forgive myself.”

The more he tries to explain the less it seems to help, Crowley’s shaking his head now, making soft noises of denial.

“No, you don’t understand,” Crowley says wretchedly, he drags his hands out of his pockets so he can pace. “It was a game to me. It was a story. It was rehearsed, it was - I did it over and over again.” His hisses in air, teeth clenched on a strangled sound of self-recrimination and shame. “I made it something easy, I made _you_ something easy, something I could have whenever I wanted. And when I woke up and realised that you _saw_ all of that, that it was really you and I’d just... just treated you like a character in a bloody play, making you perform your part, using you for my own—” Crowley stops and just breathes for a moment - when he continues his voice sounds pained. “It was your first time and I couldn’t fucking bear it. I couldn’t face it, or you, at least not yet. It was just easier to not say anything at all.”

Just like Aziraphale, Crowley has been holding this secret for years. And just like him Crowley has been assuming himself the one to blame, the one who did something unforgivable.

Only Crowley has been wrong, all this time.

“Crowley—”

“No, Aziraphale, this is my fault.”

“ _Crowley_.” It’s a punch of sound, much louder than Aziraphale expected, or planned for, but Crowley has gone silent, expression shocked. “Crowley, listen to me,” he says firmly. Because he will not allow the demon to take on the guilt for something that wasn’t his fault. “I was the one who entered a place that was private to you, a place I had no business being, a place no one should ever feel judged, a place you should have felt safe. Your dreams are your own and I had no right to insert myself into them. I had no right to take the place of any figment of your imagination. I should have found another way—somehow. I shouldn’t have let myself be so selfish, and I’m sorry. I’m terribly sorry, and I need you to hear it.”

There’s a very long silence after that. 

Aziraphale exhales. It’s done, it’s finally out. Whichever way Crowley takes it, he’s finished keeping secrets, finished wrestling with his feelings of guilt. All that’s left to do now is make it up to Crowley, in whichever way his friend will allow him to.

He expects Crowley to insist it wasn’t his fault again. Though he thinks it would be fair if Crowley got angry, if he raised his voice at him. He hasn’t discounted the slim possibility Crowley will walk away from him, either immediately or little by little, and he’ll be left completely alone, without the only being in the universe who ever understood him.

Instead, what happens next is that Crowley takes the last two staggering steps between them, puts his arms around Aziraphale, and folds forward, head bumping against the angel’s. And, suddenly, Aziraphale finds out that his chin fits perfectly over the curve of Crowley’s shoulder.

They’ve never hugged before, never had an excuse to. Which is absurd, when they’ve done so much already, but Aziraphale has seen humans hugging a million times, knows exactly how it should go - so he raises his arms, cautiously, and wraps them around Crowley’s back, closes his eyes.

“Angel,” Crowley murmurs softly against his hair.

“My dearest,” Aziraphale replies, feeling newly brave like never before.

“If you ever felt like it would be all right, I…” Crowley’s hand is warm on the nape of Aziraphale’s neck, and impossibly gentle. “I would very much like to kiss you as if it were the first time. I think we deserve that much.”

Aziraphale pulls back just enough to be able to look at him - the black glasses, the perfectly coiffed hair, the expression on his face somewhere between terrified and hopeful. His sweet, wonderful demon. His Crowley. 

He smiles.

“It would be the first time, wouldn’t it?”

Crowley’s eyebrows pull together. It’s not a frown, it’s something softer, as if Aziraphale is giving him a gift he doesn’t think he deserves.

“You’ve never kissed me before,” Aziraphale tells him, as though it’s true and, in a way, it is. Because kisses taken in the haziness of dreams, when the love of your life doesn’t even know that you’re real, how could they possibly count? Aziraphale sighs out a breath, tells himself to do it, to take the first step for once in their relationship, to be brave. “I would very much like you to kiss me now.”

The request pulls a deep, wounded noise out of the demon. Something that’s been waiting years for some indication that Aziraphale is willing to acknowledge and to reciprocate his feelings. 

The time for subtlety has long passed.

Crowley sways forward, leans in, his mouth covering Aziraphale’s in one slow press, his long fingers sliding up into the soft curls of his hair to hold the back of his head. As the seconds tick by and Aziraphale doesn’t push him away, doesn’t lean out of the kiss, doesn’t reject him, Crowley gives a quiet moan of surrender and sinks into his body, kisses him harder. 

It’s so unbearably sweet, so gentle, and Aziraphale aches all the way through.

There’s a shaky disbelief to every slow, repeated press, as if the reality of this after so long dreaming about it was more than Crowley was prepared for. He lifts his other hand, cups the sides of Aziraphale’s face in his warm hands, carefully, like he’s something precious, lips gently parting - and Aziraphale remembers how to open with him, even though it’s the first time. He remembers how to breathe with him, how to sigh his name between kisses, and how to coax Crowley’s deeper. He knows how Crowley kisses, even though it’s the first time. It’s the first time, and it’s perfect— 

Until Crowley surprises him by breaking away, air hissing through his teeth in a way that Aziraphale feels vibrate all the way through the demon’s chest and into his own. His perfect hair is pushed up messily on one side, though Aziraphale doesn’t remember putting his fingers in it, and Crowley’s mouth looks soft and wet, rubbed red by Aziraphale’s enthusiasm. The knowledge that he’s responsible for leaving Crowley so dishevelled is a heady thing indeed.

“Wait, angel, let me—” Crowley reaches up, gently slides his glasses off, the legs falling together as he pulls them away. His suddenly exposed eyes are so sharp and so desperate, years of restraint and pain somewhere in the depths of them, and still just a hint of disbelief that he gets to have this. There’s an old and comforting familiarity to all that emotion that all the careless joy of the dream could never match.

“I’ve always loved looking at you,” Aziraphale confesses. “Since the beginning.”

“Angel. I could say that to you a thousand times over.” Crowley finds Aziraphale’s hand, lifts it to his mouth and presses a kiss to the palm. “I forgive you,” he says.

It feels like a punch, and Aziraphale can’t breathe for a moment.

Crowley kisses his hand again.

“I don’t think you did anything wrong, would never judge you for it, but I know you. I know that you need to hear it.” It’s a rush of words, as if Crowley dislikes that he has to speak them at all. “I forgive you.”

It burns like alcohol on a wound. Painful and purifying. _Pur_ \- the Greek word for fire.

“Crowley.” Aziraphale steadies himself by holding onto his friend, a hand on his cheek, the other seeking his arm. “Oh, Crowley.” His bottom lip wobbles, he refuses to cry, refuses to make Crowley worry any more than he already has. 

It will take him another hundred lifetimes to deserve the kind of love and devotion the demon is freely giving him. It’s a good thing he’s got nothing but time on his hands.

“Aziraphale.” Crowley leans in to kiss him again, hesitates, and it’s the angel who reaches up and closes the distance between them. A thousand years learning the curve of Crowley’s lips - he thinks that would suit him just fine, yes. But the demon breaks the kiss as soon as it deepens, cheeks flushed, breath already short. His pupils are blown wide. “There’s something else I have to—something else you should know.”

Aziraphale touches his nose to Crowley’s. “Anything, love.” The word rolls off his tongue easily, naturally, as if this wasn’t a life-altering event, and he has to wonder for just how long he’s been thinking about Crowley in such terms, safe in the confines of his mind.

Crowley’s eyes are almost entirely yellow, impossibly big and bright - he must have noticed, of course he would. He swallows, presses his forehead to Aziraphale’s. “Nothing about it was right, but I… it was still you. And it was—until I knew better, until I realised, it was—”

“Yes,” Aziraphale agrees, understanding what Crowley is getting at between his lapses and hesitations. Because he’s thought about it himself, how could he not? He’s thought about it a million times. “It was. If you’re asking—I still want you. Terribly so. But I don’t mean to presume you’d—”

It’s Crowley’s turn to cut him off, long fingers sliding under Aziraphale’s chin to tilt his head up and kiss him, an arm around his waist to pull him in. “I think we should stop talking, angel,” he says, and grins.

The kiss they fall into together is different this time, the press of their mouths breaking easily for sighs and half-caught pieces of each other’s name. The occasional soft laugh of relief. Both of them are a little overwhelmed with the truth that they can finally touch each other - can finally kiss each other, with no guilt or shame or fear. Nothing was ruined forever, what he thought he’d broken can be fixed, and they both still want each other desperately. They’ve always wanted each other.

Neither Heaven nor Hell are going to stop them now, they have all the time in the world if they want it.

Aziraphale finds that he doesn’t really want to wait that long. The memories of their time together - though they’ve always been sharpened by guilt, and regret - were precious to him. The touch of Crowley’s hands, the way he’d looked when he moved astride him. The way his expression had softened and then fallen to pieces, the faint hope that the dream would carry on in real life, against all odds. It had been a gift he didn’t deserve, but Crowley had let him keep it anyway.

He eases back a little, thumb moving gently on the curve of Crowley’s jaw, and the slight roughness feels very real.

“I do have a bedroom upstairs,” Aziraphale says, and finds that being forward about his desires isn’t half as terrifying as he’d thought. “If you’d like to continue this _discussion_.”

Crowley’s shaken exhale and strangled curse suggests that Aziraphale wasn’t the only one imagining the possibility of a new first time. He can’t help but wonder if Crowley had pictured something like this, the two of them in Aziraphale’s bed together, tangled naked in the sheets after a glass or two of wine. If he’d wanted it as much as Aziraphale had.

“Angel, it’ll be right this time,” Crowley promises quickly, as if he hears something of the thought. “I’ll do it right this time.”

Aziraphale shakes his head, makes a soft protesting noise.

“Oh, Crowley, you were never wrong. You could never be that for me.” He pushes a hand back into the demon’s hair, kisses that beautiful mouth again. He drops the other to catch hold of Crowley’s long fingers and tugs him in the direction of the small door that leads upstairs. “But I would like some memories from the real world now.”

“I can do that.” Crowley smiles, and Aziraphale recognises that tone and expression immediately, knows exactly where it fits in the mental archive where he’s catalogued each and every one of Crowley’s reactions over six thousand years. That’s Crowley’s _I’m nervous and excited and I don’t want to show it_ face.

Aziraphale smiles at him, so in love with him it hurts deep inside his chest, and tightens his hold on the demon’s hand, hoping it feels reassuring as he begins leading him up the stairs. 


	6. Chapter 6

Aziraphale dusts his bedroom with a quiet miracle as they go up the stairs. He knows Crowley will notice, and he knows Crowley will make fun of him for it. And he knows it’ll distract him from whatever he’s feeling nervous about.

Which is exactly what happens as soon as they step in, the demon noticing the faint smell of ozone and salt water, and giving a soft bark of laughter.

“If you didn’t let the mess get so bad.” Crowley catches him at the waist, smirks as he leans in close, “You wouldn’t need sneaky miracles to fix it.”

That’s fine, that’s better, Aziraphale loves seeing Crowley smile, even when he’s gently teasing him for the way he keeps his bookshop and the small flat above it.

He kisses that smile over and over, first standing, then sitting on the edge of the bed, then pushing him down against the soft blue duvet. 

“You’re perfect.” He can’t resist telling Crowley - because he is, here on his bed, like he’s always belonged there, with his hair tousled by Aziraphale’s hands and the uncertain smile on his face, the smooth skin over his collarbone begging to be kissed and the racing pulse under his jaw.

Aziraphale had never thought he’d be lucky enough to get a do-over, and he doesn’t want to miss a precious second of it. He takes Crowley’s clothes off slowly, piece by piece, and there’s no resistance, the demon gives him everything, bends to be unbuttoned and stripped so willingly. Aziraphale worships every newly uncovered part of him like it deserves to be, even when the demon starts to squirm underneath him, even when his moans of gleeful surprise and ecstatic pleasure turn into whining sounds of urgent request.

“Aziraphale.” Crowley’s hands have only managed to struggle Aziraphale’s shirt out of his trousers, and to unbutton his waistcoat. He clearly feels as though he’s fallen behind. “Let me touch you, please, I need to touch you.”

Aziraphale supposes that is fair. He quickly unbuttons his shirt while Crowley balances on his elbows, teeth dug into his lower lip, hair a beautiful mess. He’s already straining tight and hard against the material of his underwear, knees jiggling impatiently.

The shirt, bow tie and trousers are eventually discarded with none of Aziraphale’s usual care. Crowley surges up to meet him when he leans back down for a kiss, and he doesn’t resist when Aziraphale strips black cotton from him, leaving his cock to bob against his stomach, and a demon gloriously naked in his bed.

Crowley’s long hands slip into his sensible underwear, pushing it over his hips and down his legs, taking a moment to squeeze indulgently wherever his hands land - though that seems to mostly be his buttocks. Aziraphale kisses him in retaliation, arm sliding around his back to hold him close. It’s been so long since he’d been naked with Crowley and this time it feels very, very real. Crowley laughs into the kiss, a soft, teasing thing that Aziraphale wants to keep.

“Ugh, fuck, you’re going to give me a thing for sock suspenders, aren’t you? And I’m supposed to be the evil one.”

Aziraphale presses their feet together, feels the curl of Crowley’s toes through the fabric of his sock.

“I can take them off if you’d rather,” he says playfully.

“No, fuck it, leave ‘em on, we’ll call it a weird kink and be done with it.” He raises a hand - Aziraphale suspects to snap himself ready - before thinking better of it. “Did you want to do it again, you seemed to - ah - you seemed to like it before.”

Aziraphale takes that hand, kisses the knuckles. “There is no before. And I have no expectations whatsoever.” He looks down, past Crowley’s navel, to the appealing curve of his cock. “Well, that might not be entirely true.”

He trails wet kisses down the demon’s neck and chest, making his intentions very clear. He glances back up every few seconds to make sure this is okay with Crowley - that’s how he catches him blinking furiously, forcing his eyes back into a human-like appearance.

“Crowley.” He presses his lips to the thin skin over the demon’s hip bone, squeezes one of his thighs. “You don’t have to do that. I would very much like to see all of you, if you’ll allow it.”

Crowley inhales, looks up at the ceiling - seems to make a decision. When he meets Aziraphale’s gaze again, his eyes are molten gold from corner to corner. Sharp white fangs peek slightly from his upper lip, his nails have lengthened into claws. Shiny black scales now run up his legs all the way to his thighs, and Aziraphale has never seen something more beautiful in his entire existence.

“My gorgeous darling.” He catches the skin on the side of Crowley’s knee between his teeth, sucks it until a little dark mark forms. He continues, exploring the delicate flesh of his inner thigh, sliding closer and closer to his throbbing cock, until Crowley seems to have forgotten how to breathe at all.

He cautiously wraps a hand around the base of it, notices how it’s reddened and wet at the tip. “Oh, I… I’ve always wanted to do this.”

Crowley has an arm flung over his eyes now, as if he can’t bear to watch. There’s a punched-out laugh, every muscle in his body tensing in anticipation. “Would you please get on with it before I discorporate?” There’s amusement to the words, but also something soft and stunned, something overwhelmed by such easy acceptance.

He’s not sure how he knows, but Aziraphale is suddenly sure that Crowley has never let himself be _this_ in his dreams. He kept the human disguises, hid the pieces of himself that didn’t quite fit. He played the fiendish, wily demon as far as he could, and never let the edges melt away for something honest. 

No, Aziraphale doesn’t think any of the fantasy versions of himself ever got to see Crowley like this. Perhaps the demon never imagined that this could be something Aziraphale would want to see, to know, to touch.

“I love you like this.” Aziraphale lays the words against the rippling splash of scales up the inside of Crowley’s thigh. Which trembles and then leans into his mouth. “I remember the glorious, glittering shine of you. I remember how beautiful you were, how beautiful you still are. When I saw you in the garden the first time, I marvelled at how gracefully you moved over the grass.”

“ _Aziraphale_.” The arm slides off Crowley’s face, stretches until his hand can flatten on the wall above him, claws dark against the paint. His exposed eyes are fixed on Aziraphale, honey-yellow and so open that it almost hurts to look at. “Angel.”

“I would love to show you, in so many ways.” Aziraphale draws that thigh in, runs his fingers over the smooth flex of glossy black as he curls it over his shoulder, mouth moving upwards, pressing kisses to the crease of Crowley’s thigh, following the vulnerable swell of his balls to the base of his cock, where he leaves his open mouth for a moment, while he adjusts position. Crowley groans and shakes and pleads quietly, the nails of his other hand scratching at the sheets.

Aziraphale has no reason in the world to deny him. He kisses and licks his way to the top of Crowley’s cock, tongue collecting the bead of fluid there, before gently taking the flushed head into his mouth. 

“Fuck—oh fuck, oh _fuck_ ,” Crowley mumbles as he grips the sheets, an aborted jerk of his hips suggesting he’s doing his best to hold back. Aziraphale can’t quite help the chuckle that escapes him at the state the demon is in. 

Which, in turn, makes Crowley writhe even more. Which only makes Aziraphale want to do it again.

It’s a wonderful, intoxicating thing, to think they’d influence each other this way.

Aziraphale takes his time, wants to learn how to do this properly, but the way Crowley keeps opening and closing his fist, lifting it from the sheets to move it in the vague direction of the angel’s head before dropping it again on the bed signals he’s losing his patience, hard as he’s trying to keep it.

Aziraphale realises he wouldn’t mind being guided at all, so he takes Crowley’s hand and lays it on his head.

“Oh no, don’t do that,” Crowley hisses even as his fingers sink into the angel’s curls, even as his spine arches and his cock pulses hot in Aziraphale’s mouth. “I wanted to—ah, I wanted to show you I can last a little longer.”

Much as Aziraphale thinks that’s very sweet, he also thinks Crowley doesn’t have to prove a thing to him. Besides, there have to be some advantages to being an occult entity who doesn’t have to adhere to the physiology of the human body if he doesn’t feel like it.

So he presses Crowley’s hand against his head until the demon starts pushing and pulling, setting the rhythm he prefers, and all Aziraphale has to do is focus on what it felt like in the dream when Crowley did this to him and try to replicate it: unbearably hot and perfect, wet and indulgent and velvet-soft… speaking of which, he hurries to tuck his lips over his teeth.

Crowley’s reaction is immediate, he slaps a hand over his own mouth and bucks up with his hips, unable to hold back any longer. When he speaks, it’s muffled by his fingers. “Angel, if you don’t stop immediately…”

Aziraphale, very deliberately, doesn’t. If anything he goes faster, relaxes his throat and tries taking him even deeper, submits to the tempo set by the demon’s hand, until Crowley wails and Aziraphale feels the delightful sting of his claws digging into the nape of his neck.

The long, drawn-out sound of his name is blissful and apologetic as Crowley spills in long, shivering bursts across his tongue and down his throat. The squirm of his hips slides the sensitive length of his cock awkwardly deeper into Aziraphale’s mouth. Which he’s not prepared for, if the smothered curse and the jump of thigh muscle is to be believed. His hand is fisted in Aziraphale’s hair, the other slipping down the wall as he trembles through the aftershocks.

“Angel, you’re so good, you’re so good, fuck—” Crowley’s fingers unclench, slide gently through his hair instead.

Aziraphale looks up, mouth still full, to catch Crowley’s eyes, and the demon gives a long whine of helpless arousal at whatever picture he makes. His hips giving a valiant little nudge before sinking back into the bed.

“Get up here,” Crowley slurs. “Making me lose my bloody mind, the least I can do is return the favour.” Those long scale-patterned legs spread pointedly, and the offer is obvious. Aziraphale thinks it would be rude to refuse such a tempting invitation. If that’s what Crowley really wants.

He slides back off Crowley’s slowly softening dick.

“Is that what you’d like?” he asks.

Crowley garbles a noise that ends in a laugh.

“You’re seriously asking me that, yes, one hundred percent, dreamt about you inside me since that night. Didn’t know if I’d ever get it again and—” His voice cuts out because Aziraphale is already stretched over him, making soothing noises into his throat and easing his legs wide, to expose the soft stretch of his perineum, the inviting, tight furl of his anus.

Aziraphale drags an already oiled finger over it, watches it clench under the attention.

“Fuck.” Crowley loses all the air in his chest, desperately pulls in more when Aziraphale slowly breaches him. A careful, pushing slide that leaves the demon’s thighs tugging open wider, hips lifting for the penetration. “Aziraphale.”

“You’re so warm inside.” Aziraphale pushes deeper, feels the gentle stretch of Crowley’s body around him. He wants to feel it this time, he wants to open the demon for him, he wants to see everything.

Crowley strangles out a word that might be his name, as Aziraphale leans in, kisses the long bend of his throat, the plane of his cheek, the curling serpent on his skin. Before swaying back to watch his fingers disappear into the heat of him.

“Angel, don’t tease, I can’t take it.”

“Oh, you can.” Aziraphale can’t help the breath of laughter. He’s just so happy, so happy he doesn’t even know what to do with himself. “You can, you can, and I’m going to spend the next thousand years testing exactly how much you can take.”

It’s a promise, a proposal - one he’s reasonably sure his demon will accept. Crowley makes a strangled noise high in his throat, scandalised or laughing or, most likely, both at once. It’s a beautiful sound.

“I’m going to…” Aziraphale has to stop and breathe for a moment, overwhelmed by all the possibilities, all the things that now are just within reach. First of which will be to make Crowley as happy as he deserves. “Everything, anything. Anything you ask for, darling, you’ll get.” 

This is not the best moment to get emotional, not when he’s knuckle deep inside Crowley, who’s been reduced to a shivering, babbling wreck, but it’s so good, too good, he can’t help himself. “And one of these days I’d like to find out what _you_ feel like inside me too, if you’re amenable.”

It must have been the right button to push, because Crowley’s hips jerk and he clenches tight around his fingers. He’s rock-hard again, dribbling all over his own stomach.

“‘ziraphale,” Crowley pants, breathless. “If you don’t fuck me right now I swear to Satan—”

“Language,” Aziraphale scolds, but he’s smiling, grinning even, can’t quite get himself to stop. What a ridiculous sight he must be, a fumbling mess, probably not sexy at all, and yet Crowley looks at him like he’s irresistible, like he’s something he never thought he’d get to have.

Aziraphale slicks his cock in one quick movement, before drawing the demon’s body in and slowly sinking inside him, letting himself enjoy every inch he conquers. Crowley, underneath him, is clinging to him with legs and arms and claws, hissing the word _yes_ over and over again as he pulls him impossibly closer.

“You’re so beautiful,” Aziraphale tells him, beyond desperate for Crowley to know, to believe him. “Never think for one moment that I am anything other than impossibly in love with you. Crowley, I’ve never wanted anyone else.” He loses all words for a moment as Crowley’s body stretches open and accepts him - spine bending as he pushes down and groans into the pressure. “Just you,” Aziraphale adds, more shakily. “Only you.” 

It’s as if they’ve been in a decaying orbit since the beginning, and they were always meant to crash into each other. From the moment the demon smiled at him and made him feel _seen_ , Aziraphale was lost. 

“I want to know everything you like, I want to give you every single thing you’ve dreamt of. But this time it will be real,” he promises. “It will be us and we never have to wake up.”

Crowley is making hurt noises in his throat, knees pulling up as he tries to get Aziraphale deeper. The rasp of scales at hips and waist, where the demon’s lower legs catch at him, is strange and thrilling, all these hidden pieces of Crowley that he’s always loved just as well. To be allowed to see them is a gift.

The new position opens the demon out, lets Aziraphale’s cock sink in all the way to base, all the way to his tight, aching balls. And it’s such a blissful feeling, to be so deep, to be held so tightly. He presses a hand to Crowley’s long thigh, holds him just like that so he can draw free and then sink inside him again, and then again. He watches it happen, watches Crowley’s rim stretch tight around him, shiny with oil, and the sight of it makes pleasure coil sharp and hot in his gut.

Aziraphale has never needed anything this much and he feels weak with it. He wants to be careful, he wants to make it last, but he’s already chasing pleasure for them both. His pace dragging surprised, blissful noises out of his demon.

“Aziraphale.” Crowley bites down on a hiss, hand reaching over his head again to fist tightly in the pillows, cotton immediately tearing under his claws. His eyes are huge, mouth open, a groan bursting out of him every time their hips meet in a quick, filthy slap of skin.

Aziraphale can’t hold back anymore, doesn’t care to try. They’ll get to do this again tomorrow, in two hours, in five minutes, all the time if they want to. There’s no reason not to give himself over to pleasure completely. He wraps a hand firmly around Crowley’s cock, determined to bring him with him.

He wants Crowley so much he’s dizzy with it, drunk in a way he’s never been before, feasting on the sight of the demon like this, soft and wild and overwhelmed and unbearably gorgeous.

And finally his.

His orgasm catches him by surprise, it spreads from his groin and runs up his spine, sets off stars behind his eyes, makes every part of his body thrum with it. It knocks the breath out of him, has him grip Crowley’s thigh and bend over him as he comes inside him hard and long with a helpless groan. He might even swear, it’s all a blur as relief and happiness course through him and make him briefly forget his own name.

He comes down slowly. The first thing he becomes aware of is his own hand, hot and wet and sticky between them - Crowley has spilled in his fist, and Aziraphale wonders at the feeling. So human, so physical, so perfect.

He raises his head, seeks Crowley’s gaze, sees the same surprised amazement mirrored back at him. 

He’s so overwhelmed he doesn’t know what to do of himself.

Crowley reaches for him, as he’s done a million times before, as he does for the first time today.

He guides Aziraphale to lie next to him, kisses the corners of his smile, presses his lips to the wet lines on his cheeks.

“There you are, angel,” he murmurs, impossibly tender, cupping Aziraphale’s cheeks in his hands. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Let Sleeping Demons Lie (Art)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26914228) by [PanyLuna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PanyLuna/pseuds/PanyLuna)




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